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Hardware for Linux and XBMC - Printable Version

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- BLKMGK - 2007-11-30

Ben doing som emore research... I'd pretty much decided on a nice CHEAP Intel based board that had GMA X3000 onboard until I looked more closely at the Wikipedia regarding it's capabilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#Linux

It seems only the LATEST GMA chipset will handle OpenGL 2.0No So back to the drawing board. Still more research and I found that some Myth users are having issues with overscan on the 8x series of cards and that supposedly it wasn't adjustable as it was with the 7x series of cards. From what's been posted here perhaps that has changed but being a neophyte I'm not willing to go too far off the beaten track for an unknown and possibly mythical performance gain. It would seem that a 7x series card is the way to go for me.

Integrated NVIDIA video is interesting but honestly their chipsets always seem to have some weirdo' quirk that bites me in the ass when I'm not looking. I've had this mostly on Windows but the poking around I've done has indicated that yeah they are supported but occasionally you have to "tweak" things. Tweaking is what I'm trying to avoid! Blush Intel stuff seems to be pretty rock solid and while I might be able to do a system cheaper using such a board I'd prefer to just spend the money and skip any potential hassles - an extra $100 or so won't break the bank. Oh and it did seem interestnig to me that so many of the UbuntuMyth guys run AMD CPUs, from what's been posted here and elsewhere I'd think a C2D would be preferred for HD. They do say 3Gig minimum though

Personally I REALLY look forward to when this is more finely tuned and we can just buy a specific hardware setup and install it ala KnoppMyth Nod Until then I'm willing to work with what's available. I realize this is forging into uncharted\unsupported territory but I need something and this project is moving forward faster than I'd imagined with an interface I've come to love, I'm willing to spend some cash and try it.

Oh and as an aside, I and some friends finally managed to get an AppleTV to try and play some HD MKV files. Nope, not enough power on that puppy so I think that's dead as a hardware alternative. <sigh>


- rodalpho - 2007-11-30

Well, you can go with the integrated nvidia 630i chipset and then if it doesn't work like you want pick up a cheap PCI-E 8400GS for like fifty bucks.

They run AMD CPUs because until very recently they were much cheaper than intel. Now that the E4500 can be found for $120 or so, that's no longer the case at the mid-end. AMD is still cheaper at the low-end, but linux has no video acceleration so that won't help us out.


This is the video card I use in my shuttle - gateway69 - 2007-11-30

http://www.provantage.com/msi-nx8500gt-mtd256eh~7MSTI0A9.htm

GeForce 8500GT PCI-E 256MB GDR2 3PORT DVI TV Out HDMI Passive Cool

It seems to work well, its fanless and does the proper resolutions on my big screen.


- BLKMGK - 2007-12-01

gateway69 Wrote:http://www.provantage.com/msi-nx8500gt-mtd256eh~7MSTI0A9.htm

GeForce 8500GT PCI-E 256MB GDR2 3PORT DVI TV Out HDMI Passive Cool

It seems to work well, its fanless and does the proper resolutions on my big screen.


You are a bad bad man!Stare That's damned cheap and passive too <sigh> Even cheaper at NewEgg too!

No overscan issues? Any install problems? I ASSume you are using the NVIDIA closed source drivers yes? Now to choose a M/B, I thinkthis is a pretty convincing video card! This card takes audio to the HDMI too if you connect it to the motherboard. I've seen it stated that Linux doesn't support audio via HDMI but will it with the S/PDIF connected this way?:confused2:


- BLKMGK - 2007-12-01

Just for grins I loaded this on another machine of mine. Faster that the laptop but not real fast and single core. It also has a Riva TNT card in it so also not up to spec. This loaded up pretty well and was usable! I was able towatch SD vid pretty smoothly but HD MKV files pegged the CPU and it jittered - duh 12FPS. Impressive though I think! The XBOX would puke when it tried this same fileBig Grin

A friend was also convinced to try it with a 6x series card in his machine, CPU unknown. It ran better for him than me but also CPU bound. Playback would get dorked if you paused and restarted too - the playingwindow would act as if you had a windowed the app it looked like. Not sure this is ready to replace my old XBOX but I will build one and play. I think some of the screwiness is due to playing on the keyboard trying to figure controls outShocked

Hats off to the devs! This might not be perfect but it sure is a nice preview of things to come IMO. I'm stokedNod

What are folks using as an IRDA receiver\remote? I have an MCE keyboard and remote, have to find it's receiver though. Good enough? XBOX remote maybe?


- Jezz_X - 2007-12-01

Incase anyone cares I recently did some testing on my box with some 1080p and 720p h264 videos (over samba)

Shuttle xpc http://au.shuttle.com/product_detail.jsp?PI=635
core2 duo 6550 & 2.33ghz
2 gig ram
Nvidia 7100gs 256mb

[ SomeUnamedMovie.1080p.hddvd.x264.sample ] • ( 00:19 / 01:01 )

about 60 to 75% cpu usage with no frames dropping
big action scene lots of bullets and stuff flying all over the place

[ SameUnamedMovie..720p.HDDVD.DTS.x264.Sample] • ( 01:04 / 01:11 )
uses about 50 to 65% cpu

Bare in mind the 1080p video was also being scaled back down to 1360x768 screen resolution as well since its what my tv does
And from memory using vsync on nvdia cards increases cpu usage by about 20%


- Jonsson - 2007-12-01

Got bored waiting on the drivers to mature for the integrated ati x1250 so when i read that Jezz_X was able to play 1080p with a 7100gs i went out and bought a 7200gs for my self as i was so cheap and silent..=)

Here is some test results.

GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H
AMD A64 X2 (AM2) 4000+ @ 2700Mhz (stock cooler)
1024MB RAM
Nvidia 7200GS
vsync = always on
HDTV @ 1360*768

Menu:
fps: 59.5
cpu: ~4%

HDTV rip: Eureka/Heroes
fps: 24
cpu: ~26%

x264 720p: TMNT/Transporter
fps ~24
cpu: ~46%

x264 1080p: transformers/shooter
fps: ~24
cpu: ~80%


- ekurin - 2007-12-01

BLKMGK Wrote:What are folks using as an IRDA receiver\remote? I have an MCE keyboard and remote, have to find it's receiver though. Good enough? XBOX remote maybe?

I installed the MCE ir-receiver that comes with the MCE Remote yesterday and it worked perfectly.

If you run into problems I recommend this page

Gonna head out and by the MCE keyboard which hopefully works just as good as the remote.


- BLKMGK - 2007-12-02

ekurin Wrote:I installed the MCE ir-receiver that comes with the MCE Remote yesterday and it worked perfectly.

If you run into problems I recommend this page

Gonna head out and by the MCE keyboard which hopefully works just as good as the remote.

You're an inspiration - I've dug up my USB dongle and will try this out first chance I get. I've got the keyboard too and I will report back as soon as I've tried it out but it might be a day or so. Will probably pull the trigger on a hardware order tomorrow and build sometime in the coming week!Nod

Appreciate the posts from folks who have been successful runing high def. Is 24FPS stutter free? Not sure how many FPS the stuff is broadcast in...:o


- Jezz_X - 2007-12-02

BLKMGK Wrote:.......
Appreciate the posts from folks who have been successful runing high def. Is 24FPS stutter free? Not sure how many FPS the stuff is broadcast in...:o
24fps is what the videos are in thats the whole point it limits it to the videos fps during fullscreen to prevent issues


- ekurin - 2007-12-02

BLKMGK Wrote:You're an inspiration - I've dug up my USB dongle and will try this out first chance I get. I've got the keyboard too and I will report back as soon as I've tried it out but it might be a day or so. Will probably pull the trigger on a hardware order tomorrow and build sometime in the coming week!Nod

Appreciate the posts from folks who have been successful runing high def. Is 24FPS stutter free? Not sure how many FPS the stuff is broadcast in...:o

FYI the keyboard was easy to install while following the instructions here. However I only got the media keys to work, the alphabetic keys won't function. I guess you have to define them in the lircd.conf.


lirc kickin' my butt - BLKMGK - 2007-12-03

ekurin Wrote:FYI the keyboard was easy to install while following the instructions here. However I only got the media keys to work, the alphabetic keys won't function. I guess you have to define them in the lircd.conf.

Okay, have to admit to making nearly zero headway on the remote and the keyboard. Following the previously linked instructions I was doing okay even getting around the missing Lirc.conf on the site specified thanks to Archive.org. Wink However when Lirc fires up it insists it's not configred even though the config file is there. The stuff for keyboard is pretty fuzzy for me as my grip on what they are doing is tenuous, I understand the config file maps irda codes though and that drivers are being built so not 100% lost. In any case I do not wish to derail this thread further on this sidetrack but am thrilled that getting this working appears possible in the future. This is on a test box now anyway so no biggie, I hope that down the road the final XBMC install will work OOTB with this remote and irda receiver though as they seem decent.

As for 24fps, I wasn't sure hence my question. I'm more used to thinking in terms of computer FPS where you want 30+ to avoid flicker. Since 24fps was stated such that it sounded positive I asked <shrug>

I pulled the trigger on an E6750 C2D, ASUS P5K-E, the MSI fanless 8500GT mentioned previously, and supporting components to build. I will overclock this if FPS requires it and run it in a tower till I'm sure this is the way to go forward. Nod I'll try to post some results on the build when running later this week. Perhaps under or over clock to see where CPU needs to be to run smooth if folks care. Nerd

Stay tuned, and I hope others will post results as well.


- embrion - 2007-12-04

Tested at my old laptop:

OS: Ubuntu 6.10
CPU: PEntium 4 2,66GHz
GPU: Mobility Radeon 9200: http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-9200.6943.0.html
RAM: 512MB
Vsyns: always off (yes, in my case turning it on also lowers framerate)

and results are (yes, I know this ain't suprise) very low:

720p.x264.mkv : FPS: 9, CPU-Total: 100%, CPU-XBMC: 99,9%
1080p.x264.mkv : FPS: 5,3, CPU-Total: 100%, CPU-XBMC: 99,73%

Tommorow I'll try to check it with two PCs


- siDDis - 2007-12-04

I just tried the build 10899, works great! However

1080p stuff which is full 16:9 runs very slow compared to in Windows where they're smooth as silk.

I have a 3.2gh core 2 duo. Except from that everything is just perfect! =)


- BLKMGK - 2007-12-04

I have lirc working! Went over settings carefully since it was telling me it wasn't configured and I'd downloaded a file todo so, found the error,works fine including someof the keyson the keyboard. The config file specified in the tutorial can be found here since the original download site is 404.

Not 100% sure which build I'm on - is there an easy way to find out? I did a pull fromSVN againthe other day and it compiled fine, looks liek Ineed to script and cron job that :-D